Newburyport Roadway Runoff Project
The City of Newburyport and MVPC are partners on an 18-month project to inventory, map and assess sources of urban runoff pollution to Newburyport Harbor. Water quality tests conducted by the Division of Marine Fisheries (Plum Island staff) show heightened bacteria levels in the harbor following rainfall. Polluted harbor water has forced the long-term closure of over 800 acres of productive shellfish beds — beds that at the turn of the century yielded harvests as large as 100,000 bushels of soft-shell clams annually.
For the last several months, working closely with Newburyport Wastewater Treatment Plant and Department of Public Works personnel, MVPC's environmental staff has been inventorying and computer-mapping the city's downtown road network and storm drainage system (catch basins and outfall pipes). The project team will soon begin six months of storm drain sampling to identify bacteria “hotspots,” then will follow this with targeted smoke-testing to pinpoint specific sources of pollution, such as illegal sewer tie-ins.
Once the assessment phase of the project is completed, city officials and MVPC will explore options for abating the pollution. These may range from strict code enforcement actions to stormwater “first-flush” treatment facilities. The restoration of harbor water quality and reactivation of the area's dormant shellfishing industry are top environmental priorities of both the City and MVPC.
Public Stock Enhancement Project in Gloucester
Building on the results of two recently completed aquaculture demonstration projects in Gloucester, MVPC - in collaboration with the Gloucester Shellfish Department and commercial shellfishermen - launched an exciting Public Stock Enhancement Demonstration Project last summer. This project, the first of its kind on the North Shore, is designed to benefit commercial shellfish harvesters and underemployed maritime workers.
One million juvenile soft-shell clams were purchased from a hatchery and placed in the waters of Gloucester. With the help of the Gloucester Shellfish Department and commercial shellfishermen, clams were grown to 'field-plant' size in 'growout' cages (floating, water-permeable cages), feeding on naturally occurring food in the water column. Approximately 200,000 of the clams were planted on an unproductive shellfish bed last December with the remaining clams to be planted in the spring.
This project is designed to improve clamming at the demonstration site, a nonproductive shellfishing bed in Gloucester. It is hoped that continued management of the productive shellfishing beds in conjunction with public seeding efforts will provide a more sustainable clam fishery for Gloucester residents. If successful, the project may provide a model which could be applied to other North Shore communities.
For more information, contact Jerrard Whitten at MVPC.
GIS Aids in Coastal Resources Planning and Protection
Geographic Information System (GIS) professionals at MVPC are providing North Shore planners and decisionmakers with a broad range of GIS products and services. These resources are customized to meet the specific needs of municipal boards and departments by combining their environmental planning capabilities with GIS expertise. MVPC has been assisting 8T&B communities on a number of local and inter-municipal resource mapping projects, including:
